(Bumped – promoted by ek hornbeck)
The problem with liberal pundits is that they are capable of being overtaken by herd mentalities just like their conservative colleagues. On Iraq, the majority of liberal pundits have bought into the the patently false notion that the Congress has done “everything it can” to end the war while at the same time deciding Hillary Clinton is not pure on Iraq, notwithstanding the facts. Take Harold Meyerson for instance:
. . . Congressional Democrats have honorably tried and failed to scale back the war; the Senate's requirement of a 60-vote supermajority to alter policy requires supermajority support from the public for an altered Senate.
This is simply false. Meyerson can not be ignorant of the fact that no bill need be passed to end the war. That in fact, FUNDING the war requires passage of a bill and not funding does not. Meyerson gives the Congress a free pass while taking shots at Hillary Clinton:
If Democrats are to win in 2008, it will be because they represent a decisive break, not a partially veiled continuity, with George Bush's policies, and with his war policies most of all. The Democratic candidates, Clinton especially, need to assure voters that their voice matters more than those of the Beltway theorists who supported the war at the outset and still can't contemplate ending the occupation.
Frankly, I have serious doubts that Harold Meyerson gets it on Iraq. At least Hillary knows to not vote for funding the Iraq War, something Meyerson either does not get or does not support:
I have voted against funding this war, and I will vote against funding this war as long as it takes.
On this issue, Hillary has earned more trust than Harold Meyerson, the constant apologist for this Capitulating Congress.
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They’d go after the Democrats who keep voting to fund. The idea that Republicans are ever going to listen to us is beyond silly.
What it adds up to is that everyone else has given up on ending the war until 2009..
blowing the storm horn — troubling news here:
http://www.docudharm…
To alter policy requires a super majority?
Horseshit.
Hillary voted against funding the war?
“Meyerson can not be ignorant of the fact that no bill need be passed to end the war. That in fact, FUNDING the war requires passage of a bill and not funding does not.”
it seems to me then Hillary’s statement is false if your statement is true.
or am i misunderstanding?
It’s not just your pundits who have a herd mentality, it’s your politicians as well. Wasn’t dkos running an ad not long ago highlighting that Reid and Pelosi are sheep? 🙂
Come to think of it, isn’t dkos just a big example of a herd mentality? Isn’t everyone over there of the same mindset? Sure, they may argue endlessly about subtle distinctions between trivialities but on the really big issues they seem to be pretty much in lockstep to me.
Thoughts?
By controling the House, the Dems control all funding. Arms could be twisted by withholding funding to things not labelled Iraq. All appropriations pass through a filter named Nancy–she has the cards, just not the card sense–or the spine–or the will.
AP
According to this article, government is borrowing against defense budget to fund the war.
It sounds like the majority of liberal pundits are feeling a bit ineffectual and are trying to make excuses for themselves.
They need to keep hammering away and reminding their readers and Pelosi and Reid of the fact that no bill need be passed to end the war, and keep hammering away and reminding Pelosi and Reid and the rest of the Democratic Leadership and Democratic Presidential frontrunners that they were hired last November to do a job.
A job that they are not doing.
The Democratic Leadership and Democratic Presidential frontrunners might stop and ask themselves what they do with their own employees who don’t do the jobs they were hired to do.
Excuses are for losers. We hear enough of them from right wing pundits.
in which paper, again?
maybe he, too, just wants to get invited to sally quinn’s cocktail parties.
Candidates are no longer elected by their constituents. They are elected by the amount of money they collect.
Candidates are not looking for support from voters but from funders. Their postions on the issues are a deception which is successfully engineered through the AMOUNT OF MONEY they collect.
The more money the more power in the form of advertising the candidates can achieve.
The American public is willing to live with obvious contradictions as witnessed by the IRaq War which has been proven and amply illustrated to be a fake war which is utterly failed to provide any support to “American Interests”.
There are no candidates anymore that have credibility and money. There is no one to vote for amongst the “viable” candidates.
There is no solution to this. Not anytime soon.
If that isn’t acknowledged there is will be no solution period.
The blogs or net roots or whatever you guys call them are as Armando said shills for corporate interests or monied interests or even foreign interests. The blogs are conservative and promote War candidates.
A Democratic win by Hilliary, Edwards or Obama will present a new set of problems with no solutions.
The situation in Iraq will change but not in ways easily forseen. America may leave…but not in the ways one would expect.
Not Bloody Likely! I agree it has come down to the power of the purse and the Democrats have not seriously (only comically) engaged that possibility. However, I am not sure I buy the “we don’t want to look soft on Defense,” excuse. The Hawkish attitude of some of the primary contenders dispels that. I also assume that those Democrats in the House and Senate that WON on “anti-War stop the violence by any means necessary platforms” also know that there will be virtually no political blowback for taking a stop the war or die stance. In my heart of hearts I think many Dems think that Bush is so batshit crazy that if you pull the funding plug, the asshole in chief will leave the troops dying in the Iraqi desert. No one wants to say that though I think most are thinking that Bush has deep seated psychological issues, I mean the type that cannot be bargained with and will not compromise.
the American mid-section has an infinite capacity for lies. We can’t even drag ourselves out of bed.